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AFnord: Basically every book by Stephen King that has been made into a movie. The further King stays away from the movie production itself the better. King is good at creating interesting premises for stories, but I don't think he is a good author.

I disagree. Pet semetary is better than the film. Different Seasons is as good as its adaptations (or almost). IT is better than the film. Dead Zone and Misery are as good if not better than their adaptations. And there's quite a few short stories that are quite nice, and anyway better than their bloated film versions (Maximum overdrive, lawnmower man....).

King's writings' quality is extremely variable. And so are their movie adaptations. Qualities often cross.

AFnord: Basically every book by Stephen King that has been made into a movie. The further King stays away from the movie production itself the better. King is good at creating interesting premises for stories, but I don't think he is a good author.

Telika: I disagree. Pet semetary is better than the film. Different Seasons is as good as its adaptations (or almost). IT is better than the film. Dead Zone and Misery are as good if not better than their adaptations. And there's quite a few short stories that are quite nice, and anyway better than their bloated film versions (Maximum overdrive, lawnmower man....).

King's writings' quality is extremely variable. And so are their movie adaptations. Qualities often cross.

To add... Delores Claiborne was WAY better than the movie, The Stand ditto, the Langoliers ditto, Thinner, The Running Man, The Tommyknockers, Sometimes They Come Back ditto ditto ditto and ditto.

The Shining doesn't belong in the argument because there is so much great scary stuff in the book that just doesn't work and never would work on film which is one of the reason Kubrick had to change so much of it.

Telika: And there's quite a few short stories that are quite nice, and anyway better than their bloated film versions (Maximum overdrive, lawnmower man....).

Please don't compare the short story to the movie, as they are completely unrelated. The only thing they share is the title, and Stephen King even sued New Line Cinema to have them remove his name from the title. Naturally, he won the case (three times, no less), and New Line was eventually forced to comply.

Personally, I love the movie, and found the short story mediocre at best, but again, those are two unrelated opinions about two unrelated things.

Navagon: Blade Runner, definitely. Total Recal also went above and beyond the source material.

To throw in some graphic novels, I'd say Watchmen (exactly the same, apart from a better ending) and Wanted. The graphic novel left me somewhat ambivalent and unsure as to what it was striving for. To me it seemed like the protagonist was just as much a tool by the end as he was at the start. But I don't think that was the point.

I wasn't aware that The Birds was based on a novel. All I know is that I tried to watch the movie once, but after 45 minutes during which nothing had happened, and no birds had appeared, I turned it off in disgust.

corwyn77: M*A*S*H, both the movie and the series are far superior to the books (though i did enjoy them when I was young). Planet of the Apes (the original)

The movie is one of my all time faves but I hated the series. Yes, I know I'm going to hell for that. So be it.

As far as Apes goes it really doesn't belong in the conversation because you can't make the book into a movie the way it was written. No spoilers here, but anyone who has read the book knows what I'm talking about, you just CAN'T do that with a movie.

Randalator: That was very much one of the many points of the graphic novel...

That's the problem. Its focus actually lies entirely outside the story and its characters. It relies on that broader context and the resultant graphic novel suffers as a result. None of the characters are remotely likeable. They're ludicrously overpowered. So the only 'point' the story has don't actually relate to the story itself at all. Sure, you can call it an interesting commentary on supervillianary, but it's not very enjoyable on its own merits.